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Cat Impact and Management on Two Mediterranean Sister Islands: “The French Conservation Touch”

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Cat Impact and Management on Two Mediterranean Sister Islands: “The French Conservation Touch” Bonnaud,E.;K.Bourgeois,D.ZarzosoLacoste,andE.Vidal.CatimpactandmanagementontwoMediterraneansisterislands:“theFrenchconservationtouch” Cat impact and management on two Mediterranean sister islands: “the French conservation touch” E.Bonnaud 1,2 , K.Bourgeois 2, D.ZarzosoLacoste 2,andE.Vidal 2 1 EcologySystematicandEvolution,UMRCNRS8079,UnivParisSud, Bât.362, F91405ORSAY Cedex IMEPCNRS.<[email protected]>. 2UMR6116, MediterraneanInstitutefor EcologyandPaleoecology, PaulCézanneUniversity, BâtimentVillemin, DomaineduPetitArbois, AvenuePhilibertBP80,13545AixenProvencecedex04– France Abstract Feralcats( Felis catus )areoneofthemostdamagingintroducedspeciesforislandspeciesworldwide.While catcontroloreradicationishandledwithincreasingeffi ciencyonuninhabitedislands,thestrongbondwithhumans, regardlessofownership,makescatmanagementdiffi cultoninhabitedislands.Weconductedacatremovalprogramme on PortCros Island where both the presence of humans and their cats threaten Puffinus yelkouan , an endangered Mediterraneanendemicspeciesofburrowingpetrel.ThetwolargestFrenchbreedingcoloniesofthisprocellariidare onthetwostudiedislands:PortCrosandLeLevant.ThecatremovalprogrammewasimplementedonPortCros,with LeLevantusedforcomparison.Catdietstudiedthroughscatanalysisshowedcatstoberesponsibleforkilling162± 46and21±4shearwaterspercatandperyearonLeLevantandPortCrosrespectively.Birdbreedingparameterswere monitoredduringsevenyearsonPortCros(beforeandaftercatremoval)andthreeyearsonLeLevant.Byconstructinga shearwaterpopulationviabilitymodel,wecalculatedthatthecatimpactontheyelkouanshearwatersthreatenstheentire populationinthelongtermandjustifi edcatremoval.WedesignedaconservationmanagementplanforPortCroswhere, takingintoaccounthumanpresence,feralcatswerelivetrappedanddomesticcatsweresterilised.Followingthistwo yearcampaign,catpredationofshearwatersceased,followedbyanincreaseintheshearwaterbreedingpopulation.Thus, protectingseabirdsfromcatpredationispossible,evenonislandswhereinhabitantsarenotoriouslyreticenttoanysort ofcatremovalprogramme. Keywords: Feralcat, Feliscatus ,eradication,yelkouanshearwater, Puffinus yelkouan ,islandconservation INTRODUCTION effi cacy and prioritization of cat eradications (Fitzgerald The spread of nonindigenous species is considered 1988;Paltridge etal. 1997;FitzgeraldandTurner2000; second only to habitat destruction in harming native MacdonaldandThom2001). communities and considered fi rst to impact island The Hyères Archipelago has domestic and feral cat biodiversity (Vitousek et al. 1995; Williamson 1996; populations, and is a major breeding site for Yelkouan WhittakerandFernándezPalacios2007). shearwater.Westudiedshearwaterpopulationviabilityin Cats ( Felis catus ) were fi rst introduced to islands in ordertoconductrelevantferalcatmanagement. theMediterraneanin9000BP (Vigne etal. 2004;Driscoll Theaimsofthisstudywereto:1)monitortheshearwater et al. 2007), and have since been introduced to islands populations;2)studycatdietinrelationtotheshearwater worldwide from the sub Antarctic to the sub Arctic, breedingcycle;3)evaluatethecatimpactonthepopulation includingthemostaridandmesicislands(Ebenhard1988; viabilityofshearwaters;and4)managecatpopulationsin Courchamp etal. 2003).Theyaresuccessfulinvadersof ordertomaintainbiodiversityonislands. islandsbecausetheycansurvivewithoutaccesstofresh water, have high fecundity, a high adaptability to novel MATERIALS AND METHODS environments, and have generalist predatory behaviours thatallowthemtofeedonmostpreyspecies(Pearreand Study area Maass1998;FitzgeraldandTurner2000;Say etal. 2002). This study was conducted on two islands within Catsareoneofthemostdamaginginvasivepredatorson the Hyères Archipelago located in the northwestern islands (Fitzgerald 1988; Macdonald and Thom 2001) MediterraneanSea(Fig.1).LeLevantIsland(10.8km²) andareresponsible,atleastinpart,for8%ofglobalbird, hasamaximumelevationof140mabovesealevelandis mammalandreptileextinctionsandasignifi cantthreatto 9.15kmfromthemainland.Itisamilitaryislandfor90% almost10%ofcriticallyendangeredbirds,mammalsand of its area; the remaining 10% is occupied by civilians. reptiles(Medina etal. 2011). PortCrosIsland(6.40km²)hasbeenprotectedbyNational Seabirds are often badly affected by cat introduction Parkstatussince1963,hasamaximumelevationof196 on islands (Courchamp et al. 2003; Blackburn et al. mabovesealevel,andis15kmfromthemainland.The 2004;DonlanandWilcox2008),particularlypetrelsand climate is subhumid, temperate Mediterranean with an shearwaters, due to their lack of predatory defence and averageannualrainfallof582.4mmandanaverageannual their high vulnerability to adult mortality (Brooke 2004; temperature of 16.5°C (Levant Island Meteorological Le Corre 2008). Different studies have recently shown Offi ce,1997–2007).Theislandsaresiliceous,LeLevant that several Puffinus species, especially those belonging being mainly covered by the typical shrubs of “maquis” totheManxshearwater P.puffinus worldwide‘complex’, vegetationwithsparsesclerophyllousoaks( Quercus ilex ) areseriouslythreatenedbyintroducedpredators(Mayol and halepo pines ( Pinus halepensis ); PortCros being Serra etal. 2000;Ainley etal. 2001;Cuthbert2002;Keitt coveredbymixedforestsofthesclerophyllousoaksand et al. 2002; MartínezGómez and Jacobsen 2004). The halepopines. Yelkouanshearwater( Puffinus yelkouan )isendemictothe These islands have long been home to introduced Mediterranean Basin and near threatened and declining vertebrates including cats for two centuries (Pasqualini (IUCN RedList),withabreedingpopulationpossiblynot 1995),rats( Rattus rattus )atleastsincetheRomanperiod exceedingsomethousandsofpairsandprobablyrestricted (Ruffi no and Vidal 2010), and rabbits ( Oryctolagus toafewbreedinglocations,mostofwhichhaveintroduced cuniculus ).TheMediterraneanendemicseabird,yelkouan predators(BourgeoisandVidal2008). shearwaterisrepresentedonLeLevantby8001,300pairs Eradicatingcatsfromislandscanprotectnativespecies andonPortCrosby140180pairsfromaworldpopulation from the threat of extinction (Nogales et al. 2004) and likelytobefewerthan15,000pairs(BourgeoisandVidal researchontheecologyofinsularferalcatscanimprovethe 2008). Pages 395-401 In: Veitch, C. R.; Clout, M. N. and Towns, D. R. (eds.). 2011. Island invasives: eradication and management. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland. 395 Island invasives: eradication and management Shearwater monitoring totestthedifferenceofthecatdietonbothislands,then We monitored 100 shearwater burrows on PortCros randomisationtestswereperformedtodetectdifferencesin duringsevenbreedingseasons(2003to2009)andin76 catconsumptionofeachpreytherebyallowingcomparison burrowsduringthreebreedingseasons(2007to2009)on ofsmallpercentages(PD=observedpercentagedifferences; LeLevanttorecordthepercentageofoccupiedburrowsand Manly1997). breedingsuccess.Likemostseabirds,yelkouanshearwaters havelowreproductiveoutput;theystartbreedingataround Cat impact on yelkouan shearwaters 6yearsofage,generallyfi rstattemptstobreedfail,and To estimate the magnitude of cat predation on theyproduceonlyoneeggperyear(e.g.,Brooke1990). shearwaters,wefi rstcalculatedthenumberofshearwaters TheyarriveattheirbreedingsitesinlateOctoberorearly eateneachyearbythecatpopulation.Sincenoidentical November(Vidal1985;Zotier1997),whichcorresponds partsfromtwoormoreshearwaterswerefoundinanyone to the prospecting period when birds visit the burrows catscat,eachscatwereassumedtobeofonebird(Keitt andlookfortheirmate.EgglayingisfrommidMarchto et al. 2002; Cuthbert 2002; Bonnaud et al. 2007). Cats earlyApril,hatchinginMayandfl edginginJulyandearly usuallydefecateonceperday(Konecny1987).Thus,the August. meannumberoftheshearwatersperscatisequivalentto A miniatureinfraredcameraonastiffcoaxialcablewas themeannumberofshearwatersingestedperdayandper cat(NP ).Theannualmeannumberofshearwaterskilled “snaked”downeachburrowtodeterminethepresenceof /d pairs,eggsorchicks(BourgeoisandVidal2007).Burrows onLeLevant(NP)bythecatpopulationwascalculatedas werecheckedninetimesduringeachbreedingseason:at follows: theendoftheprelayingperiod,thestart,middleandend NP=NP /d ×365×N cat (1) ofthelayingandhatchingperiods,and15daysbeforethe withN cat :numberofcatsontheisland. beginningandatthemiddleofthefl edgingperiod.A last Predationrateswerecalculatedassuming:1)predation checkwasdoneattheendofthebreedingseasontofi nd on prospectors (birds looking for a mate and a burrow) possible corpses and confi rm chick fl edging (Bourgeois (PB)wasfourtimeshigherthanonbreeders(birdswhich 2006). A randomisation test was used to compare the werebreedersthenextyearandthecurrentyear)(PP);and percentofoccupiedcavitiesbetweenthefi rstyearandthe 2)predationwasexertedonprospectorsfromage3(from lastyearofourcensuses N3 P to N6 +P )andonbreeders(fi rstbreedingassumedat6 years,(Brook1990))( N6 ) Cat diet study +B NP=P ×( N6 )+P ×( N3 + N4 + N5 + N6 )(2) The diet of feral cats was studied through scat B +B P P P P +P analysis(Fitzgerald etal. 1991;Bonnaud etal. 2007).We WithP P=4×P B opportunistically collected scats on sample paths from AndNP=numberofshearwaterskilledperyear. October 2002 to August 2004 on PortCros and from Theimpactofcatpredationonshearwaterpopulation October2006toAugust2008onLeLevant.Scatswere dynamics was assessed by constructing a shearwater collectedfi vetimesperyear:whentheshearwaterswere demographic population model adapted from Bonnaud prospecting, breeding, hatching, rearing and during their et al. 2009 (see Appendix for the model structure and annualexodus.Byremovingallscatsfoundinthefi eldand implementedparameters).Thevalueofshearwaterbreeding excludingveryoldones,weassumedthateachsampling
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